Five biology students and I have come from the University of St. Thomas (MN) to study “Urban Agriculture and Social Innovation” in Cape Town, South Africa. We are spending June immersing ourselves in the local food system in Cape Town thanks to the leadership of our partner Zach Lager and our support organization, Think Impact.
Our main focus has been to work on community and school gardens in Khayelitsha, the largest and fastest growing township in South Africa. Our host in Khayelitsha, the organization Abalimi Bezakhaya “Farmers of the Home”, works to help urban farmers “supplement their existing, inadequate supply of food and create livelihoods”. The students are learning from the farmers and thinking about potential collaborative projects (here is a video to show what the work is like).
One of the Abalimi Bezakhaya gardens in Khayelitsha
We have also spent time visiting locations and meeting people across the city. We have a great time working with the Muslim Cape Malay community and experiencing the hip scene in the waterfront and cape town business district.
The students generally don’t have a lot of experience in agriculture and they’ve never before been to any place like Cape Town. So they have a lot to learn. But should they just be learning? Or should they be trying to make a difference too?
We asked them to define their role. As you’ll read, there is no consensus. You’ll also realize that we have a great team. Below are their thoughts (edited a bit for brevity):
“This question of ‘what is my role’ has me (and everyone I’ve talked to about this prompt) stumped. I don’t think we ask ourselves this enough, no matter where we are in the world.” – Karl Buttel
“…I struggle to pinpoint what I am doing here. Am I here to be curious? Ask questions? Listen to people? Am I allowed to interject with my own thoughts? …Taking an urban agriculture course, it would seem obvious that I am here to study how to urban farm but it is not this simple. Experiencing first-hand how the “Born Free” generation is still affected by apartheid, in some cases as if the apartheid had ended just yesterday, makes me question how beneficial another white person can be in the townships. Seeing the radical change that needs to occur in Cape Town makes me feel excited to go home and create change. My role will be different next week, tomorrow, this afternoon, but for now, in this booth, it feels far-reaching but also limited. My role is listening without feeling the need to interject my voice. My role is acknowledging how my presence changes the dynamic of a group. My role is questioning my role.” – Sophia Brown
St Thomas students working with Abalimi youth and farmers to test soil fertility and contamination
“While gardening yesterday, Sophia and I had a conversation about how we were struggling to define our roles here in Cape Town because we didn’t want offend anyone by exaggerating the importance of our roles. Another theme that has come up a lot in conversations is avoiding the mentality that we are here to be white saviors. It is not our job to walk into the townships and gardens as educated, know-it-all students who are here to solve the problems we deem necessary to be fixed. Our approach must be to learn about what kinds of issues they struggle with when it comes to agriculture, and to bounce ideas around with the people who live out these problems. It’s also important that the solutions are sustainable for the farmers because if the solutions are only feasible with resources that we can offer, then that defeats the whole purpose.” – Mallory Hedden
“As someone who has the ability to make change, I feel a responsibility to do as much as possible in the little time I will be spending here. Khayelitsha is the city the garden is located that we work in, and as we were driving through the town it was very apparent that this place had been decimated with poverty. I assumed that the people that lived here were just unmotivated to work hard, but quickly upon arriving I learned that my assumption couldn’t have been more wrong. Every person I met was interested in trying to better the community and they were doing this by exerting themselves within the garden. After seeing this I felt my role should be to give as much to this community as possible. When working in the gardens I make sure to give maximal effort to the task at hand. When learning about the process of prepping a bed I pay very close attention so later I can apply this knowledge. I understand that my time in Cape Town is limited to just a month and that it would be naive to think I could fix a community in this little amount of time. Regardless of the amount of time, I am more motivated than ever to help in any way possible.” – Steven Plouffe
“I think my main role here may be to listen, although being a good listener does not give me permission to have no agency of my own. Being able to listen and learn from the people around me, whether they come from the same university as me or a different continent, and contribute to the conversations without hijacking them to fit my own agenda or in a way that discounts the knowledge, culture and dignity of the people around me. My job as a person lucky enough to be able to witness the range of privilege and lifestyles present here is to openly embrace the knowledge there is to be gained, both through actual course material and stuff that cannot be taught in a classroom (or grassy space by the mountains or coffee shop or distillery in our case). Part of being a good listener is embracing what one hears enough to be able to apply what has been heard where appropriate. We discussed as a group that maybe our role in this environment is to be stepping stones, conduits- able to connect the dots in the big picture overview that we can see as outsiders and pass on information that can be used for good.” – Maggie Schmaltz
“Even though I don’t need to decide where I fit into this system, it’d be pretty cool if my role could overlap with my interests. I’m a geek when it comes to soil. I’m here because my university granted me resources to work with an urban farming group in Khayelitsha to explore methods of managing soil fertility. What can my academic experiences- the work that I’ve been a part of and the works that I’ve read up on- do to benefit this community and their established knowledge of working with sandy soils? Their greater food system? I am more than excited for this summer of exchange. One role that I am certain of regarding my time here is that of a student. I have so much to learn from this community. I look forward to showing up every day with open ears and hands- ready for directions, spades, and seedlings.” – Karl Buttel
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